Time is a Funny Thing
by SecretlyRowling
Summary: Time is a very complex thing, we try to unfurl it, yet come no closer the where we started. While magic helps with just about everything, the closest we have come to understanding times workings has been the invention of the time turner. A collection of TimeTravel Oneshots, Drabbles, and Plotbunnies that I decided to post here instead of gathering dust in my files.
1. Something Simple

Its a dark and thick forest that he wakes to; not the same place that he first fell, the air too moist, to chilled, the trees to free, no crowding masses like the Black Forest. Instead, the grass is greener, rain slick and the trees curve and curl as they please. Harry remembers someone telling him about that, Neville maybe, how trees grow tall and thick when crowded close, competition for sunlight, and how they grew which everyway they wanted when fewer.

It has a certain beauty he thinks, the soft sound of birds, rain trembling down on leaves, his breathing even. He waits for a moment, wonders if anyone will come to search him out, wherever he may be, but no, there is nothing to disturb his surroundings.

He thinks about panicking for a moment, thinks about the fight that he left behind, the scarlet train that had passed him by as he wandered out through platform 9 3/4. Should he have waited, would that have lead him back to the forest, the right forest; to Death Eaters and Voldemort.

He can hear slithering, winding closer and closer, can hear the slipping tongue as he lays still, looking up through a sparse canopy. The angry words cut off for a second, then the sound of loud complaining started up, where once was just mindless mutterings to ones self.

He was going to turn, going to ask the snake he could feel now, what it was that was bothering it. Its words got to him sooner, the snake's notions of humans; great lumps just tossing themselves about where ever they pleased, when they pleased. His brows rose slowly but surly as the snake made its way around him, stopping on occasion to gather some of his warmth.

There was another sound that had both he and the snake tensing, it crowded more closely to his arm, he held still, eyes shutting gently, and relaxed his breathing. He hoped he was doing a good job, the snake was hidden from the angle of the sound.

Small footsteps became louder, he could hear more hissing, hear the words curl around a young tongue, calling out for a friend to talk too. His breath hitched, his arms and legs tensed more, relaxation and normalcy a past issue.

There was only one other who spoke so sweetly to snakes, so gently, and commanding. Harry could imagine him still, like a walking dream that had yet to leave him since it haunted him from a pensive. Hair slicked back, neat, sharp blazer and matching shorts; oxford crisp and cream colored, small shoes tied, socks peaking from their cuffs.

The boy stopped not to far from Harry, stilling quickly, hissing stopping, and calculating gaze burning across his body. He could hear the little boy creep closer, hissing softly, hissing out for a little friend. He could feel the snake begin to move, raising its head to look across Harry's chest.

"Little snake, come away from him." the boy stayed away from Harry, a good distance, Harry decided, to keep from suspicious individuals.

The snake began to crawl over his chest, he could feel its cool, smooth , light weight as it glided across him.

"Now," Harry began to say, his own hissing halting the snake and making the boy jump, "It's not polite to ignore someone and then use them as a walk way, is it Tom?"

Harry turned his eyes to the young boy, just a few years younger then when Dumbledore had gone to meet him. His eyes were wide, excitement, caution, and desperation melting into their depths.

Well, Harry thought, if there was a better way to finish it all, it would no doubt be at the very beginning, now wouldn't it.


	2. Things Can Change

There wasn't much that could be done for the boy; his eyes large and beseeching, but the burning desire was there.

Harry doubted that there could be anything harder to do, then to finish what this boy had unwittingly started. Or, perhaps, what his mother had started. The boy wasn't at fault, not yet anyway, not in the ways that mattered yet; no blood had yet to be drawn that Harry knew of at least.

Harry was shivering, the draft from the hall pulling in cold, rainy autumn winds. The orphanage was large in a morbid sense, and just as dark. Tom sat in a chair too big for his small stature. He was staring at the desk, the wall, and the women passing by.

Some of the younger ladies and older girls sliding up and down the hall, passing the door to peak a view of the young man sat with the child.

Harry could feel their eyes on his skin, could feel Tom's calculating gaze on his face, like a hand on his arm; a snitch at his ear.

The door creaked shut as the old women came back in, papers ready for the signing, and filing, and giving, and claiming; and everything that Harry could, didn't, want to think about.

It was with a slightly aching wrist that Harry gathered the child's hand in his own and walked them from the building. Umbrella bowed deep and pitch black over their heads. They walked down the road, away from busy streets to a park; swings pushed back and forth by wind and rain. Harry stopped, turning to face the small boy, maybe five, or six, it was so difficult to tell really; he had never been too good at gauging age.

The boys eyes trained on him, he pulled him closer still, bringing the boy up into his arms; felt the struggle that the child started up as soon as Harry's arms wrapped around his tiny body. With a quick turn, and a gasp, they stumbled into the Forest Dean, the boy open mouthed, eyes wide and searching.

Maybe, Harry thought, maybe it wasn't to late.


	3. Choking

There was a stone wall digging into his back, pressure strong across his collarbone and shoulders. Harry was beginning to consider why it was exactly he got himself stuck in these circumstances if they tended to always end with him hurt in someway. The arm pushing him into the damp school hall was tense, ready to slide that fraction from restraining him, to choking him. The young man in front of him, tall, lean, hair parted to the side, eyes dark, brow furrowed, was supposed to be in bed.

Harry only took a second to berate himself for the confidence that he had in his knowledge of the boy. He had to remember that in this time, Tom was whole minded, if not souled. He tried to calm his breathing, having sometime ago learned that disinterest and exasperation were easy fixes to being caught following about things one should very much not be following around.

Tom leaned in close, face not far from touching Harry's own. His cool breath fanning against Harry's face like a Ridgeback's. Harry tried to speak, really he did, he had opened his mouth, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, when the arm holding him place ascended to his throat.

He wasn't nearly as strong, or tall as Tom. He could only grip the arm, push and slap at the boy and kick his feet out, but not for long. Tom slide in closer, pressing his body fully to Harry's, pressing in at all angles; suffocating the menacing boy with his arm and with his self. His robes twisting with the miner thrashing that the interloper gave, he watched as beautifully green eyes widened and teared up, slowly bursting blood vessels and red faced.

It was an inconvenience for the boy to, so suddenly, appear when he did so. If Tom had been a more unconcerned individual, or unobservant, then maybe the boy would have lived a bit longer. Maybe this boy would have been an idle threat, but he was just a boy, all alone, obsessed, weak.

He was just nobody.

When the body stopped moving, stopped breathing, Tom backed away. He looked down the dark dungeon halls, no where was always safe after all, and then turned back to the deceased boy. A quick blood boiling curse, and preservation charm, and the boy was taken to an unused, unknown hall. Tom left the boy propped in an alcove, he stopped for just a minute to rap the cloak around the dead figure. Just a passing thought which he would later berate himself for having.

Maybe the child would be cold, we wouldn't want that.


	4. Le Vie en Noir

He had never noticed him before, his hair all a mess and sticking up at the back, his rounded glasses gleaming with candle light as he sat staring into nothing, his shortness, or his unkept state.

Tom had just never noticed him; sure they were the same age, but that meant little to nothing. It did, however, mean that Tom would have at least seen him in class.

He turned back into what Parkinson was saying, hoping that maybe the idiots babbling would allow for his mind to purge itself of the dark haired boy. No one in his classes seemed to know whom he spoke of, they all shook their heads or looked at the boy as if stunned to see him there, in flesh and blood.

He is a Prefect, and he likes to be established enough within his own house to the point of knowing every upper year, year mate, and sniveling lower year's names and linage. Yet here was this boy that he had no inkling to; maybe he was a younger year, he was small enough to pass by with out notice for so long.

It wasn't until the boy had been sat at the same loveseat surrounded by, what seemed to be, a blanket of people that Tom truly took notice of him for more then a split second.

The Blacks, and an assortment of others gathered in that corner, yet still the boy seemed to be left alone and away from them all. One would have to venture past them to get to the boy, so tucked into the corner he was.

So Tom thought on the boy who would appear and disappear instantaneously with just a turn of Tom's head. So suspicious and intriguing was he that Tom started to slowly keep track of him in the far resources of his mind, tallying his appearances in and around the common room and school halls.

The boy seemed to not exist, only a glimpse of him from the corner of his eye would afford Tom the knowledge of his presence. Still, after a time had passed, Tom began to wonder if it was merely his imagination or the first glimmer of obsessive impulses that had slowly started to build.

No, Tom pushed the boy from his mind, O.W.L.s taking paramount, never mind that classes had started up just a month ago. He poured himself into his classes, studies, books, and quietly, his very own lineage.

There were more pressing matters in his mind then some insignificant child that he had yet to prove his better.

No, it wasn't until he, and those he began to silently call his Knights, were in the library that it came forward once more.

The boy breezed through the doors, the untidy mess walking through the stacks. Brilliant green eyes lock with his own before those eyes turned away, as if Tom was of little importance.

And that, that was the start of anger and hate, being seen or unseen once more pushing at his chest, clawing at his heart and very soul, all because of this boy.

Yet he still made his way over, hand pushing hair from his face, only holding for a few seconds before falling in his face once more.

Hands slide into his pockets, a huff of breath and he strolled right up to Tom's table, long ago silent with his attention averted so.

That was when he was first close to the boy, first saw the scar on his forehead and his rumpled shirt, and heard his voice, low yet intense.

He seemed calm enough, but there was a tightness to his eyes that had Tom paying more attention; his shoulders stiff, his arms tense, his posture still horrid, his lips loose and corners pulled tight at the same time.

'Rosier,' His voice quiet in the already quiet library 'Druella is looking for you.'

Tom had a second to feel betrayed, here he was wondering after this boy when Rosier already known him. Had he not been clear with his curiosity? No, Rosier was quiet and watchful but not one to put forth information if not asked.

'What for?' Rosier only sat back in his seat to look at his essay, not so much as a shift of his eyes in acknowledgment, but that didn't seem to bother the boy who seemed to slowly lax his shoulders and shift on his feet.

'Dunno, wouldn't say, seemed important though.' The boy looked to be studying Rosier's face, Tom was right next to the boy, but it would seem as if no one else at the table even existed to him though all eyes were on him. ' Should I tell her you were too busy for her then?'

That had Rosier's head shooting up.

'NO!' and he was gathering his things into his bag in a hurry, the boy already gone from the stacks, the sound of the doors opening following as Rosier muttered and cursed under his breath and chased after him.

There was nothing to it now, Tom had to know, he had been so close to the boy yet still knew nothing. So he turned to Nott who sat beside him.

'Who was that, is he one of the younger years that I missed meeting at the end of the first feast?'

Nott's perpetually down turned lips pulled thin as he turned to look at Tom. Brow lifting as the others turned their eyes up at him.

'That is Sirius Black, he's a sixth year. Had I known that you had never meet I would have introduced you during the summer while we were with Rosier and his own for their gatherings. Of course, what with Druella, the Blacks were invited.'

'Introduce us as soon as possible, I want to meet this boy. You said he's a year above us? He doesn't seem to be older then us, younger if anything. Introduce us as soon as possible.'

'But of course.'


End file.
